


And If You Change the Working Parts...

by lucidSeraph



Category: The Protomen
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:05:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidSeraph/pseuds/lucidSeraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>if you change the working parts, you get a different machine...</p><p>What if one tiny thing changed that changed everything? Some people will never be heroes. But some people might become villains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And If You Change the Working Parts...

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

He practically dreams in clockwork perfection and when he’s young it burns in his veins, he wants the whole world to sing with it, and he knows he can do it or so he thinks.

But ambition thwarted turns to bitterness and he watches them take what he gives and grow fat off his dreams and lazy while he gets nothing. While he toils, unrecognized, unwanted, and others benefit. The bitterness eats at his soul and he vows that someday the clockwork beat they walk to will be his, and his alone.

He’ll steal back from them. He’ll take. Idiots. All of them. He’ll show them. Someday.

Tick. Tock.

He meets a man in college and that man is brilliant and at first he resents this, but then he sees how their dreams interlock and he doesn’t steal. He builds and they build. The other man burns with a different kind of passion, and at first Albert laughs inside, because why bother saving them? In the end they’re all weak. Cogs in a machine. Tick tock. Tools. He doesn’t say this because the years have taught him that to speak such desires gains only distrust, and he’s learned to silver his tongue and honey his words. That passion is useable. Directable.

But.

Tick. Tock.

He starts to grow fond of the other man, in his way, and his woman (jealousy? Of whom? He isn’t certain. Maybe both at once) and he thinks

Don’t they both deserve this?

All of this?

He dreams of holding the city in the palm of his hand and rolling it on the floor like a toy. He dreams of playing with it like cat and he wants (naiively? Maybe?) to share it with Tom.

Tick

__________   
To-

__________________   
To-

________________________________________   
T-

t-t-t-then she dies – and

  


He doesn’t feel much of it, honestly. She was pleasant enough, he could have seen a dalliance with her, or that she might have been useful but it’s wha

wha-t-t-tock________________________________________

it does_____________________

to Tom__________

(you change the working parts and you get a different)

That startles him.

But no of course, he takes it in stride (no wounded pride, not here, never) and well, Tom, well, yes, let’s work together, we can keep them safe, we’ll be their hope, we’ll – Tom, listen to yourself, now listen carefully to me, I – don’t turn your back on me!

Tock. Tick.

He screams in desperation and in betrayal and Light shuts him out, closes all his doors and he returns to his own tower to work on his broadcast system. Light changes all the passwords on all their work and he can’t get into the workshop anymore at all. Fine. He’ll show his old friend what he’s made of, the telecommunications project is going on schedule and everything is fine. He’s not hurt. Not at all. He’s never had friends. Light was a means to an end and he felt nothing for Emily and everything is fine.

Everything.

Tock. Tick.

He knows he’s being a pest. He’s so full of resentment, of anger that Light would abandon him and he looks for a chink in that armor, for some way to go against the man. He sees what Light’s doing and for god’s sake it’s what he would have done he should be able to stop it, to take the wheels but all he has is his money and his smiles and his screens and his words and Light has this good old boy working class thing and people feel sorry for him and he hates and he seethes and then one day in private he says a few barbed words too far and Light’s back goes stiff and that’s the end of that.

Tock.

And then one day the investigators knock on his door and tell him that he’s been implicated in an investigation into a factory accident from two years ago. He blinks at them, and smiles, and says surely there must be some mistake.

They produce photographs.

They produce evidence.

No. No. He files through them, this cannot be, he has an alabi and Tom of all people wouldn’t do this to him Tom god Tom why

No

He’s the monster

You’re the hero

This can’t -

Tick

Tick

Tick tick tick tick tick -

He runs but he can’t run, the streets are blue and the lights, they’re red and blinding, and he stands at trial and they chant and they call for his blood and he cries that he’s not guilty, damn it, he didn’t kill her, (not this time), you can’t do this to him he has lawyers and Tom…

He meets his old friend’s eyes and for a moment he thinks he sees something like regret, but it’s gone, and then the verdict

Not guilty.

Tock.   
Tock. Tock tock tock -

He is relieved for about five seconds before the crowd erupts and cries for the rope, cries for his blood, and Tom calmly states that the justice system has failed their beloved Emily but he has a solution and he’ll breathe life into her again despite this man’s sins and –

“You’re mad”

He doesn’t even have the grace of an armed escort. He runs. He watches as everything he’s ever known about mankind is made true before his eyes. They are animals. Light directs them like puppets and he is made their scapegoat, he is their devil (he thinks, with some amusement, that in the end it was true, he was the devil all along, they do have the right man but for the wrong crime, he is a monster, he is a monster - ) and he spends time in dirt ditches and his clothes are torn, and then time

passes

tock tick tock tick tock tick

the machines turn

tock tick tock tick tock tick

the rhythm’s backwards and it’s all wrong

tock tick tock tick tock tick

No one was left who could remember how it had happened, how the world had come under this searing light; at least, no one who would do anything.

Or so Doctor Light believed.

Twenty floors below the city, Doctor Wily worked long into the searing day. He had no intention of saving the world, for man had proved themselves the vermin he’d always seen them as. But they could be directed, they could be used and he would use them.

He’d tried at first another method. He’d stolen Light’s Robot Masters and reprogrammed them, destroyed large sections of the city, his prizes of course the Sniper Joes. Then Light had sent two robot terrors after him. One he’d barely managed to defeat. For a time, a short time, that one stood by his side, but he left into the sunset one day.

“I still believe man can be saved.”

“You are a fool,” he’d snarled. “They will never stand and fight! This isn’t about them! It’s about us!”

The red robot’s scarf had flapped in the wind and Wily felt every year of his age.

But no. This time.

This time.

Twenty floors below the city, Doctor Wily worked, and then one hot day, he held his masterpiece. A machine to break this city. A man to end Light’s rule. Programmed for one purpose: to defeat Light’s terror, the Blue Bomber. Named for strength.

And then, in the end, he would win.

He had to.

**Author's Note:**

> Rudimentree of Tumblr has made a lovely bit of fanart for this:
> 
> http://rudimentree.tumblr.com/post/13581998650/and-if-you-change-the-working-parts
> 
> This fic was originally posted on Tumblr on November 29. I've been meaning to archive it for some time as it turned out rather popular, but never got around to it. Now, outside Tumblr's restrictions, it has the usual stupid HTML formatting I like to put in these things.
> 
> I might expand on this later.


End file.
